An Uninvited Ghost (16 page)

“Yes, you are. We’re making sure they’re disrupted as little as humanly possible,” I told her, with a look that indicated no back talk would be accepted.

“Excuse me.” Linda Jane Smith stuck her head in through the kitchen door. “I don’t want to intrude on your family dinner.”

“It’s okay, come in,” I said. “I’m always available to a guest and, besides, we have way too much food.”

Mom beamed; she loved being accused of overgenerosity. Linda Jane walked in. Now that I knew about her leg, I noticed the slight limp that I guessed I should have seen all along. She really was very good at not letting her prosthesis slow her down.

“Thank you, but that’s not necessary,” she said, although her eyes were drifting toward the turkey and did not look uninterested. “I just wanted to ask about the police officers going through the house right now.”

I grinned. “I’m not sure if any of them are unmarried, Linda Jane.”

She smiled, too, but not as widely. “I’m sure I can find out if I want to,” she said. “But I assume they’re here to investigate Mrs. Crosby’s death last night, and I’m wondering what they might be looking for.”

I told her what McElone had instructed me to say, and what I’d told the other guests before I’d come in to eat: “They haven’t told me anything. In fact, they wouldn’t tell me. I get the impression they won’t know what they’re looking for until they find it. Please, sit down and eat. Liss, get another plate.”

Linda Jane tried to protest, but Melissa was up and at the cabinet before she could open her mouth. “That’s awfully nice of you,” Linda Jane said. As soon as there was a plate in front of her, Linda Jane started to load it up, and I was glad that Mom
had
brought too much. The woman could eat.

“Was there something you were concerned about?” Mom asked. “Something you’re afraid they’ll break or something? We can ask them to be careful around a certain object, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Linda Jane answered. “I was just worried they might be looking for insulin. I have some in my drawer; it’s part of my medical kit.”

Everyone’s fork but hers froze in midair.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Linda Jane stared at us for a very long moment until I regained the power of speech. “How . . . what makes you think they might be looking for insulin?” I asked her.

She waved a hand. “When I was trying to revive Mrs. Crosby, I noticed the calluses on the tips of her fingers, where she’d probably used lancets to check her blood-sugar levels. And she was wearing an insulin pump, for goodness’ sake. When I first took a look, I thought she might be in a diabetic coma, but that wouldn’t have killed her that fast.”

I stared at her again for a while. Linda Jane just went on eating.

“Isn’t that what happened, Mom?” Melissa wanted to know.

I stumbled over words for a few seconds, before I managed to get out, “Well, I don’t know that much, but I did hear it was diabetes-related.”

“The cops wouldn’t be all over this place if they thought this was a death by natural causes,” Linda Jane argued, as if trying to make herself sound like a suspect. “If they’re looking for insulin, it’s possible someone injected her with too much and sent her into a hypoglycemic state, but it would take a
lot
to do it that fast.”

“I bet,” Mom said.

“The thing is,” Linda Jane went on, “most vials wouldn’t hold enough. Very strange.”

“Yeah, but . . . they didn’t tell me that’s what they were looking for . . . or anything,” I stammered, sounding so ridiculous that even I didn’t believe me.

“Would you pass the gravy?” Linda Jane asked. Melissa reached over her grandmother and picked up the gravy boat to give to her. “Anyway, if they find that supply in my medical kit, I’ll just have to explain it to them, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” I said. “If that’s what they’re searching for.” I wasn’t going to get off the “I don’t know” train, no matter how far off the tracks it was veering.

“Do you know the detective in charge very well?” Linda Jane asked.

Mom and I exchanged glances. “I’ve had . . . dealings with her before.”

“What’s she like?”

“Sometimes she’s not very nice,” Melissa said. “But that’s just because she really wants to solve the crime, and she gets mad when she can’t.” Don’t ever think children aren’t good judges of character, or that they don’t see what’s going on.

I heard the kitchen door open again and turned to look. “Wow, turkey!” Jeannie stood in the doorway, Tony behind her. “Is that for everybody?”

“No, but
you
can have some,” Mom told her. “It’s good for the baby. Sit down.”

I made the introductions between Linda Jane and my married friends and watched as Tony pulled up a chair for Jeannie and a stool for himself, as we were running out of seating options. “What are you doing here?” I asked Jeannie. I pointed at her husband. “I sent that one home a while ago already.”

“He said there were armed men storming your castle,” Jeannie said, sitting down behind the plate Melissa had fetched for her. “I figured you’d need us to run some defense.”

“So far, they’ve been leaving us alone,” Mom said. “We haven’t needed any defense.”

“Good,” Tony answered. “Because I saw those guys, and I couldn’t take them without a power drill and a sack of cement.”

“You want some cranberry sauce?” Mom asked me, noting its absence on my plate.

“No, I’m good,” I said. “I’m trying to lose some weight.”

“I used Splenda,” she said, and plopped some down on my plate, ruining some perfectly good stuffing. “Besides, you look perfect.”

Melissa and I exchanged our “that’s Grandma” look, and she actually took a little of the cranberry slop off my plate when Mom wasn’t looking.

“So, fill me in,” Jeannie said. “What have I missed since last night?”

I gave her the
Reader’s Digest
version of the day’s events, including the visit with McElone and the drive with Trent. Jeannie’s eyes lit up at the reference to a single man in whom I might be interested, but I cured her of that misconception with a simple “Don’t.” Melissa, contrary to my expectation, did not look the least bit puzzled.

Once she was completely informed, Jeannie looked at her cleaned plate, sighed and said, “Being pregnant feels like it should give you license to eat as much as you want.”

Mom pushed the mashed potatoes in her direction, and Jeannie did not resist.

“Okay,” Jeannie said when she could speak again. “Let’s go around the table. Who do you think did it?”

There was a stunned silence.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked.

“Who’s your candidate? You’re an investigator. This is a good way to get all the ideas out there and start to zero in on the most logical person.”

“It’s really not,” I said. “It’s wild speculation, it’s irresponsible, it’s uninformed and it’s . . .” I thought Linda Jane would be offended, but she didn’t seem to think of herself as a suspect, and was looking thoughtful, as if she were wondering what she’d say when it was her turn to speak.

“I think it was that girl Tiffney from the TV show,” Mom said. “Anybody who’ll walk around like that without underwear is capable of anything.”

“It’s called ‘going commando,’ Grandma,” Melissa informed her. I began to doubt I’d sleep that night. Had she been watching
Down the Shore
?

“She had no motive and nothing to gain beyond a higher Q rating, and she’d never met Arlice before,” I pointed out. “It seems extremely unlikely she was mentioned in Arlice’s will.”

“What seems unlikely?” Paul rose up from the basement and took up a position near the cereal cabinet, where he was unlikely to be disturbed. I flashed my eyes in Linda Jane’s direction, and he nodded. I couldn’t answer him directly.

But Mom hadn’t gotten the memo. “It seems unlikely that the girl from the TV show killed Arlice,” she said.

“But you just said you thought she did it,” Linda Jane protested.

“Well, yeah, but I was just answering—”

I gave Mom a stern look.

“I was answering Alison’s argument,” she went on. “She convinced me I was wrong.”

“Well, who do you think did it?” Jeannie asked Linda Jane.

She put down her fork and Paul suddenly looked more attentive. “If her death was insulin-related, then it has to be someone who had access to large quantities, someone with knowledge of how much insulin it would take to kill her,” she said, seeming to think out loud. “And it would have to be someone who was standing nearby at the time.” She looked serious for a moment and said, “Honestly, my best candidate would be me. But I have no motive, and I know I didn’t do it.”

We all gave Linda Jane the laugh she was looking for, but it wasn’t exactly mirthful. There were odd glances all around the table and up near the cereal cabinet.

“So, since I know it wasn’t me,” Linda Jane continued, “I’d have to say the next most logical candidate would be someone else who’s also a type 1 diabetic. They’d have the drug and the means of administering it.”

“Are there any other diabetics among the guests?” I asked, based on Paul’s prompting. “You’re the RN; you would know.”

“It would be unethical for me to disclose that information without the patient’s stated consent,” Linda Jane pointed out. “But yes, there is another diabetic in the house. I won’t tell you who.” I looked at Paul, who shook his head; no, it wasn’t the time or the circumstance to press her on the subject.

“What about you, Melissa?” Jeannie asked. “Who do you think is the killer?”

“Whoa, Jeannie.” I tried to put on the brakes. “Melissa is not—”

“I think it was someone we’re not thinking of,” Melissa piped up. “Somebody in the room last night who knew Mrs. Crosby, but didn’t say anything. And they were real mad at her, so when they saw she was coming for the séance, they figured out a way to kill her without making it obvious that it was them.”

That was actually, as speculation goes, fairly coherent. Paul beamed as I complimented Melissa on her detective skills. “But you still have to finish your math homework, young lady, so let’s get this table cleared.”

Jeannie started to rise to help clean up, but Tony, traditional guy that he is, told her to stay seated. He started to clear dishes, as did Mom. Linda Jane, looking mournfully at her empty plate, joined in as well.

“Nobody asked
me
,” Tony said, “but I think that one of those two beer-drinking guys did it. I bet one of them had a grudge against Mrs. Crosby for some reason. They were awfully quick to start pointing fingers this morning, trying to deflect suspicion. They don’t want to talk to the police. I’m saying: You grill them long enough, one of them is going to roll over on the other.”

Paul folded his arms, then raised his right hand to stroke his goatee. It was his best pretentious “thinking” look. His mouth flattened out, and his eyebrows lowered. He must have thought Tony had made a decent point.

“I think you’re reaching, honey,” Jeannie told her husband. “You’re guessing too much about the people you’re accusing.”

“I’m not actually accusing,” Tony protested. “This is just a parlor game. And it was your idea.”

“Alison,” Jeannie said, doing her best to ignore Tony, “you’re the only one who hasn’t answered the question. Who’s your candidate? Who do
you
think killed Arlice Crosby?”

I didn’t get the chance to say that I didn’t have a candidate (although I was secretly starting to suspect the Joneses, just because they were sneaky enough to get in and out of their room every day and never be seen), because at the very moment we had cleared the table and filled the dishwasher, the kitchen door opened. Detective McElone walked in, followed by two of the CSI storm troopers.

“Oh, you’re not going to take my whole kitchen apart, are you?” I protested.

“What do you care?” she shot back. “You don’t serve food here.”

“We still eat,” Melissa told her. Melissa has no fear of grown-ups. She might not develop one until she’s a grown-up herself.

“Good point,” McElone acknowledged. Turning to me, she said, “Yes, we are going to search this room. It’s the last in the house that hasn’t been inspected.” She gestured to the two officers, who started to open cabinets and remove their contents. It was going to be a long night.

Linda Jane walked over to McElone. “By the way, Detective, I was just telling Alison that if you were looking for insulin, you’ll probably find some in my med kit. I’m a nurse, and I have some in case a patient requires it.”

McElone shot me a nasty look, probably thinking I’d gone around the house telling everybody an insulin search was on. I held up my hands, palms out, to begin to deny it, but she cut me off.

“In fact, we did find some insulin in your bedroom, Ms. Smith,” McElone said. “We found three vials.”

“That’s odd. I only have two.” Linda Jane looked genuinely puzzled.

“In your kit, yes,” the detective nodded. “Thank you for giving us the key.” She handed a key to Linda Jane, who nodded an acknowledgment and put the key in her pocket. “We also found a vial taped to the back wall of your closet.”

“I don’t understand,” Linda Jane said. “I only had the two and no reason to hide another one.”

“Lieutenant!” one of the storm troopers called over from the pantry. “There’s a vial here stuck under one of the shelves.”

McElone walked to the pantry and ducked down to look. Tony handed her his small flashlight, the one he carries in his pocket. “Very good,” McElone told the officer. “Save it as evidence, like the others.”

“Hang on,” I said. “Besides the vials in Linda Jane’s room, how many others have you found?”

“Eighteen,” McElone said. “The fact is, we found at least one in every room in your house.”

McElone’s pronouncement had something of a dampening effect on the evening. Despite their offer to “stay and offer a defense,” Jeannie and Tony went home when Jeannie decided she wanted a hot dog from a local place called the Windmill. I didn’t mind; there was very little left to defend against.